Sophie Dahl offers an insight into her marriage to Jamie Cullum | Daily Mail Online Share this article Share 'He has been incredibly supportive of my career. I didn’t finish my A-levels so there was always a part of me that wanted to be taken seriously. 'Having children was very liberating because I gave much less of a s**t about all of those things. They were suddenly the reason, much more important than any petty, navel-gazing feelings I’d indulged before.' Working her magic: In spite of her seemingly effortless sense of style, the supermodel-turned-author joked that she has the sartorial sense of a 75-year-old woman, and that her style icon is the Queen But in spite of being perfectly content with her loving family life, the 36-year-old writer - who is the grandaughter of famed children's author Roald Dahl - confessed that motherhood isn't as perpetually 'rose-tinted' as she initially anticipated. She added: 'So much for the myth that motherhood is all Laura Ashley smocks and skipping through fields. People think it’s rose-tinted and they don’t tell the truth! Childbirth! So much of it!

'It’s b****y tough. Of course Jamie’s a totally brilliant, hands-on father, but he’s a musician and, like all musicians, he’s away quite a lot. Happy families: Sophie credited her husband Jamie Cullum with helping her to create the perfect home life she had always dreamed of by giving her the support and 'emotional freedom' to pursue her goals 'Thank God so many of us are in it together. Just when you think you’ve got one phase figured out with little kids, something else comes and bites you on the a**e.' Delving deep into her childhood, Sophie admitted her 'chaotic' upbringing has made she and her siblings crave 'consistent, stable and domestic' lives since becoming adults. Discussing her mother Tessa Dahl's addiction and mental health problems, she told Red: 'My relationship with my mum is loving but complicated because of her issues. 'It’s not something I talk about much, but anyone who has grown up with a parent who is an addict will know how difficult it is.

Cute couple: The writer and the jazz musician tied the knot in 2010 and raise two daughters, Lyra, two, and Margot, 10 months, together The full interview appears in the March 2014 issue of Red, on sale January 31 'My siblings and I had a loving but very chaotic and muddled childhood, and as a result we have sought out lives that are consistent and stable, domestic and happy. 'That is the thing I am most proud of, creating that, because if you grow up with an addict, it can so easily go the other way.' Proving she can still well and truly work her magic in front of the camera, Sophie looked striking as she paraded her seemingly endless legs in a pretty lime green lace mini-dress. Wearing an immaculately tailored coat slung casually over her shoulders, the mother-of-two rocked sexy smokey eye make-up as she positively smouldered into the lens. And in spite of her seemingly effortless sense of style, Sophie joked that she has the sartorial sense of a 75-year-old woman, and that her style icon is the Queen.

She said: 'My favourite thing is a striped cashmere cardigan, and my fashion icon is the Queen, or Emily Lloyd in Wish You Were Here.' Sophie and Jamie, 34, started dating in 2008, before tying the knot in January 2010 and welcoming their first child into the world a year later. The full interview appears in the March 2014 issue of Red , on sale January 31. Also available in digital edition on Apple Newsstand. For further exclusive content, please go to Read more: Jamie Cullum talks love at first sight with wife Sophie Dahl and new album Momentum - Mirror Online Lifestyle Jamie Cullum talks love at first sight with wife Sophie Dahl and new album Momentum Over an al fresco lunch close to the village where he and wife Sophie Dahl live, Jamie is in sparkling, candid form Share Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email Since his 2004 breakthrough album Twentysomething made him the UK’s biggest-selling jazz artist of all time, Jamie Cullum has totted up around 10 million sales.

The piano man has collaborated with Clint Eastwood, Pharrell Williams and Stevie Wonder, and three years ago he married food critic and former model Sophie Dahl. The pair first set eyes on each other at a charity do in 2008 and, for Cullum, it was love at first sight. “When I met her,” says the 33-year-old from Essex, “I was taken off guard by her extraordinary beauty, what an amazing person she was, how interesting she was and how we shared so many cultural things that we enjoyed in common. “But [a relationship] never crossed my mind as a possibility. "Who was I to think she would feel the same way? It seemed like a bizarre thing to even imagine.” Over an al fresco lunch at a hotel close to the Buckinghamshire village where he and Dahl live with their daughters Lyra, two, and Margot, 10 weeks, Jamie is in sparkling, candid form. The infectious enthusiasm that has endeared him to audiences across the globe – and to listeners to his excellent Radio 2 show – is immediately apparent. “Even the bad days are good days,” he smiles, “because I love to play.

"As soon as I’m behind the instrument and the band’s there and the sound is good... it’s a huge privilege.” His new, sixth, album Momentum is aptly titled, and is by turns captivating and adventurous. Rather than slip into comfortable married life to a soundtrack of pipe-and-slippers jazz, Jamie has delivered his most personal album to date, teaming with excellent London rapper Roots Manuva, of whom he’s a long-time fan. “This is me wanting to be a songwriter,” Jamie admits. “It’s not my safe place at all – I’ve not done that before. "My last record, although I love it, was like a CV of what I do. On this record I let the songs dictate where it was going to go.” Video Loading Jamie Cullum and Sophie Dahl Marry in England Jamie Cullum and Sophie Dahl Marry in England Email British jazz singer Jamie Cullum married food writer Sophie Dahl on Saturday in Hampshire, England, the groom’s rep confirms to PEOPLE. The happy couple celebrated their vows with a party for close friends and family at a country mansion in the heart of the New Forest.

Dahl, the granddaughter of children’s author Roald Dahl, met her husband-to-be at a charity event in London over two years ago and were engaged last spring. The couple live together in west London. Cullum, 30 recently told the Daily Mail‘s Live magazine that falling in love with Dahl, 32, changed him for the better: “‘My relationship with Sophie has helped put everything in perspective,” he said, adding: ‘It reminds me that while I love (working), and have certain responsibilities to my career, there are more important things in life.” Cullum is due to release his fifth record, The Pursuit, in the U.S. in March, and will tour stateside to support it. Show Full Article Sophie Dahl - Biography - IMDb Sophie Dahl Biography Showing all 32 items Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (23) | Personal Quotes (3) Overview (3) 5' 11" (1.8 m) Mini Bio (1) Sophie Dahl was born on September 15, 1977 in London, England as Sophia Holloway.

She is an actress and writer, known for The Delicious Miss Dahl (2010), The King of Bollywood (2004) and People I Know (2002). She has been married to Jamie Cullum since January 9, 2010. They have two children. Spouse (1) ( 9 January 2010 - present) (2 children) Trade Mark (1) Trivia (23) Maternal granddaughter of children's author Roald Dahl and Acadamy Award winning actress Patricia Neal . Was first discovered by Isabella Blow , a Vogue stylist/fashion expert who also lived in Sophie's building. Sophie had just had an intense argument with her mother, and was sitting on the front steps of their apartment weeping. The two women (who up until that point were strangers) struck up a long conversation, and Isabella was awestruck by Sophie's beauty. Soon after, she referred Sophie to Sarah Doukas of the Storm modeling agency in London. In addition to modeling and acting, she also writes short stories, several of which have been published in various magazines. Was in a relationship with actor/director Griffin Dunne (2000-2001).

Paternal granddaughter of actor Stanley Holloway and former chorus girl Violet Lane (who she called 'Gee Gee'). Her mother is an author Tessa Dahl and her father is the actor Julian Holloway . Has published a book 'The Man with the Dancing Eyes' (2003). Starlet model/writer Lyndsy Spence (aka Lyndsylee Spence) has been compared to a teenage version of Sophie Dahl. Is the new model for Pringle to promote their Argyle fashion Her naked advertisement for Yves Saint-Laurent Opium perfume was banned by the British Advertising Standards Agency. Was immortalised in Roald Dahl 's story "The BFG" as Sophie the little girl the giant befriended. Was ranked #10 in Channel 5's "World's greatest supermodel". Her maternal grandmother Patricia Neal and paternal grandfather Stanley Holloway both co-starred alongside Audrey Hepburn in one of her best known films: the former in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and the latter in My Fair Lady (1964). Older half-sister of Luke Kelly . Engaged to jazz pianist virtuoso Jamie Cullum .

[2009] Gave birth to her 1st child at age 33, a daughter Lyra Cullum on March 2, 2011. Child's father is her husband, Jamie Cullum . Gave birth to her 2nd child at age 35, a 2nd daughter Margot Cullum on March 4, 2013. Child's father is her husband, Jamie Cullum . Release of her book, "The Man with the Dancing Eyes". [2003] Release of her book, "Playing with the Grown-Ups: A Novel". [2008] Living in New York City and London. [2003] Jamie Cullum: 'I wooed Sophie at my local pub' - Telegraph Music Jamie Cullum: 'I wooed Sophie at my local pub' The most successful British jazz singer of all time talks about making music, parenthood - and married life with Sophie Dahl Jamie and his wife Sophie Dahl at the GQ Men Awards in 2011. Photo: Rex Features Comments Jamie Cullum admits he’s not the greatest piano player.

‘‘I’m not the greatest singer," he adds. ‘‘And I don’t look like Justin Timberlake, but I think I can communicate on stage.” He has a point. His music and the infectiousness of his performances have turned the 35-year-old into the most successful British jazz singer of all time. After coming to national attention on Parkinson in 2003, he’s now sold more than 10 million albums and sung to audiences around the world, and yet is clearly still in love with what he has done for a living in more than decade. Cullum may be instantly recognisable and married to supermodel-turned-author Sophie Dahl , but staying grounded isn’t something he finds difficult. “I’m surrounded by musicians that are far more impressive than I am by a long way. I say it with no false modesty,” he explains. “If you’re striving to be a good musician you’re never there, you’re striving at it until the day you die.” Acknowledging others’ talent helps him to improve. “When I go in my studio to start work, I always put on a record that makes me frightened or I’ll read a passage of lyrics, or from a book that makes me feel like I’m nowhere.

And that’s a really great way to get started if you can channel it in the right way.” Cullum has released his seventh album and it grew out of the British jazz scene and the show he presents on Radio 2. Interlude, a collaboration with composer/producer Ben Lamdin was recorded in a “very old-school way” and was made with Cullum’s money without any expectation that it would become his next record. But it felt good to be doing jazz again after his previous album, Momentum which, although it had “jazz bones” was “more of a pop record”. His new album is a collection of covers and looks set to mark the space before he returns to writing his own music again. Born in Essex but brought up in Wiltshire, Cullum was raised in a close-knit and musical family. His mother was a school secretary and his father worked for a business that supplied company cars. He only became a “big success” when Cullum was in his late teens. Related Articles Cullum makes Radio 4 history 25 Mar 2012 “It wasn’t a wealthy upbringing but it was very wealthy in terms of support and encouragement. I had good parents.

‘‘My dad was born in Jerusalem; his mother managed to get out of Nazi Germany. My mum was born in Burma and when the Japanese invaded came over to the UK when she was five. Her father was Indian, her mother was Burmese. You know, dark-skinned kids in the middle of Wales in the Fifties. ‘‘Neither of my parents had much growing up and had tough times and they tried to make that very different for us.” As a small boy, Cullum would look on as family members played instruments and sang. “It’s not like it was the Waltons but music was definitely very much a feature of my young life. There was always music playing in the house and I remember sitting under the piano when my brother would play and feeling what the piano felt like.” He had a good ear himself and early on was able to pick out the EastEnders theme tune quite easily. Later, his brother helped him learn tunes on the guitar. In his teens, Cullum absorbed a range of musical styles and began collecting records from charity shops. He learnt about jazz musicians in New York and found out about New Orleans in the Twenties and Thirties.

“It’s that fertile period where you almost pretend who you want to be and actually in the end it becomes part of who you are.” He joined bands – from reggae to a “Wiltshire hip-hop thing”. Through a chambermaid girlfriend, his first paid gig was playing the piano at a hotel bar in a nearby village. Still only 16 and doing his A-levels, he would play Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday lunchtimes. Unable to read music, he chose to study English at Reading University (where he got a First) but continued to play in bands. “If I wasn’t at lectures, doing essays or partying with my friends, I was driving in my Vauxhall Corsa to do a gig. I was doing four, five a week.” At 23, Cullum was becoming known in jazz circles and was spoken about to Michael Parkinson, who invited him on to his television show. “By the time I was on Parkinson, I’d logged hundreds and hundreds of gigs in all sorts of different styles and although I wasn’t used to being on television, I knew I could sit there and put the song over.

I was eight years into a really pretty full-on musical career.” But he acknowledges his debt to the talk-show host. “I owe him so much. He was able to put me in front of mainstream Britain, which was a big privilege and that was his choice.” Cullum’s love of jazz stems from the fact it “takes a real mixture of musicianship and the crazy part of your personality”. He clearly gets a buzz from performance. “You don’t have to look, you can keep your eyes closed the whole time and know whether it’s connecting,” he says. “That’s the really amazing thing about it – it’s definitely a chemical thing. It kind of passes between humans.” Commercial success for Cullum hasn’t come at the expense of conforming to an image. “I didn’t feel the need to put on a front,” he says. He rarely attends celebrity events.

“I’d say I go to one per cent of the ones I’m invited to, and it’s not because I don’t like them, but because I always find it’s more pleasant to be at a party where you know everyone and you can get drunk or eat and no one’s taking your photo.” How accurate, I wonder, is the picture I’m developing of a charming, down-to-earth man? “I don’t think I’m that dissimilar to how I am now. I’m definitely a lot ruder and a lot more profane. I have quite a lot of energy even when I’m absolutely knackered,” he says. Being small - Cullum is probably no more than about 5ft 6ins – turns out not to have been a big deal for him. “All my family are really short. I’m tall in my family,” he laughs. “I was so used to being around short people. It was not so confusing to me. No one ever really made major reference to it until I became known – and it was written about all the time.” Cullum says he never found it easy with the opposite sex but that he wasn’t a total disaster either.

“It got easier when I was travelling and touring because, first of all, I was older and more confident, secondly, you have some validation by having some success, and thirdly being on the road – especially at that age when things are taking off – you get to party in a different way with different people in brilliant places. ‘‘It’s such a gift for a young single man. You can’t paint it any other way. And obviously I took advantage of the lifestyle.” But, he says, he was able to check himself. “I kept feeling like I wasn’t worthy, so I always managed to pull myself back from going too insane because I felt as though I had a long way to go musically.” Cullum met Dahl, now 37, at a celebrity fundraiser when she sang to his accompaniment on the piano. She was with someone else and living in New York so they just became friends. ‘He fancied her immediately, though. “But it was kind of obvious – so did everyone else. Who didn’t? What was interesting was that we just had quite similar interests. We both read a lot, we had similar rhythms to our lives.

We could sit around chatting for ages and drink a million cups of tea, we both had a small group of very close friends from childhood, we’re both passionate about a handful of things.” When they became a couple they kept a low profile. “We didn’t do anything ‘famous’ together. We went to my local pub a lot, we would have dinner at my house.” But then, inevitably, after they stepped out together at an awards ceremony, the media took an interest. “It didn’t feel particularly nice. It felt a bit untrue to who we were but, at the same time, you just have to accept it.” The pair married in early 2010 and now live in Buckinghamshire with their two young daughters. Balancing work and home commitments has been the hardest challenge Cullum’s faced, but fatherhood is the happiest part of his life. “It’s an earthquake – the focus of your life becomes very unselfish. All your decisions are no longer based on what you want to do and actually it’s incredibly freeing. I think I’ve taken much bolder decisions since I’ve had kids and I’ve felt even more appreciative of what I get to do.” He’s also become more conscious of what he doesn’t like.

“It’s made me less trusting and more questioning of life in general.’’ He adds: ‘‘I’m not an unpositive person now, but you just see more of the cracks in society and friendships and working relationships and the structures of our societies and communities. When you bring kids into it, you just question everything more because you have to decide about who you are because they pick up everything you do. You also start to see more of the cracks in yourself.” So there are cracks in Jamie Cullum? “Hell, yes! Absolutely.” Having children, he says, “holds a magnifying glass up to you and then a mirror”. Cullum has been playing music for the vast majority of his life and he’d like to go on into his eighties, if he can.

There have been moments when he’s doubted himself – “where you question what you’re doing, and hate the sound of your own voice, and the way you play piano, and you hate your songs, and you wish you were at home, and you miss your friends, and you don’t know who you’ve become, and whether all the people around you like you, and whether you’re on the right path, that happens all the time” – but he is acutely aware of his good fortune. “The privilege is not the talent; your privilege is being able to do it for a living, to make that your life on a daily basis. That is a gift.” Jamie Cullum’s latest album, Interlude, is out now Supermodel Sophie Dahl on her chaotic childhood, marriage and the myth of motherhood | Life | Life & Style | Daily Express 00:01, Wed, Jan 29, 2014 Sophie opens up about her childhood, marriage and motherhood [JONTY DAVIES/RED] Having had a less than perfect childhood - living in 17 different homes and attending 10 different schools - Sophie Dahl has made it her mission to seek a blissful and steady life.

To the outside world, she seems to be doing a pretty good job at it. Motherhood? It's bloody tough! Sophie Dahl She has a happy marriage, to singer Jamie Cullum, and two beautiful children - Lyra, three, and 10-month-old Margot. Her career has spanned modelling, cooking, writing and even reviewing perfume. And it's hard to imagine her childhood as anything but idyllic, given that the late master of children's stories, Roald Dahl, is her grandfather. But, as the 36-year-old tells the latest issue of Red magazine, her mother suffered mental health problems and addiction, which cast a shadow over her early years. Sophie flashes her pin-up pins in this gorgeous photo shoot for Red [JONTY DAVIES/RED] Sophie credits husband Jamie Cullum with keeping her grounded [JONTY DAVIES/RED] Speaking exclusively to Red in one of her most honest interviews to date, she says: “My relationship with my mum is loving but complicated because of her issues. "It’s not something I talk about much, but anyone who has grown up with a parent who is an addict will know how difficult it is.

"My siblings and I had a loving but very chaotic and muddled childhood, and as a result we have sought out lives that are consistent and stable, domestic and happy. "That is the thing I am most proud of, creating that, because if you grow up with an addict, it can so easily go the other way.” She credits her husband for helping create the home life she has always dreamed of and giving her the confidence to concentrate on her writing. “I’m married to a really, really good guy," she says. "He’s intensely curious and engaged with life, and we bring out the best in each other. "When you meet someone who really sees you, it gives you the emotional freedom to pursue your dreams. Related articles No nagging, lots of kisses and smiles: Is this how to be a happy wife? "He has been incredibly supportive of my career. I didn’t finish my A-levels so there was always a part of me that wanted to be taken seriously. Having children was very liberating because I gave much less of a s**t about all of those things.

"They were suddenly the reason, much more important than any petty, navel-gazing feelings I’d indulged before.” Sophie has found aspects of motherhood challenging, however - and is determined to be honest about the less glamorous aspects of having kids. “So much for the myth that motherhood is all Laura Ashley smocks and skipping through fields," she says. "People think it’s rose-tinted and they don’t tell the truth! Childbirth! So much of it! "It’s bloody tough. "Of course Jamie’s a totally brilliant, hands-on father, but he’s a musician and, like all musicians, he’s away quite a lot. "Thank God so many of us are in it together… Just when you think you’ve got one phase figured out with little kids, something else comes and bites you on the arse.” Sophie channels her number one style icon, Her Majesty The Queen [JONTY DAVIES/RED] Discussing her recent fashion collaboration with Brora, Sophie reveals a surprising style icon - Queen Elizabeth II. “I approached them [Brora]. I just loved the brand, and I knew they sometimes did interesting collaborations.

I wanted to do very pretty clothes… My favourite thing is a striped cashmere cardigan, and my fashion icon is the Queen, or Emily Lloyd in Wish You Were Here. "I think inside I’ve always been a 75-year-old woman, so the whole Brora thing was perfect.” Commenting on her new website, sophiedahl.com, she says it came about because she's a "control freak". “It’s a cross between a blog and an online magazine. I realised I had this archive of work – writing, columns, recipes – that wasn’t gathered together in one central place. "It’s my control freakery coming out. "I have to have things tidily away and the website is a way of doing that with my work. But then, a website, all about me? That just felt too me-centric. Dreary. "So I asked people whose writing I like to contribute.” If she had never been discovered by a model scout, Sophie believes she’d still be writing. “I don’t think things would be so different now," she says. "My younger days would have been quieter.

I probably would have gone straight to work at a magazine.” Sophie's interview features in this month's Red [JONTY DAVIES/RED] The March issue of Red is on sale January 31. For further exclusive content, see redonline.co.uk/fashion/editor-s-choice/sophie-dahl-fashion-style Most read in Life Patricia Neal’s Family and Marriage to Roald Dahl - The Daily Beast Olivia Cole 08.11.10 10:54 PM ET At the start of Boy , Roald Dahl’s first volume of memoirs, he explained the genre: “An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.” Full of boring details was never a description that could have been used to describe the lives of Dahl and his wife, the Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, who died this week at the age of 84.

Nor could it be applied to the sprawling family of writers, activists, and artists that sprang from this unlikely mix of Hollywood stardom and a literary master from Norway via Wales whose charisma, womanizing , and work for MI5 invites speculation that he might have partly inspired 007, the creation of his friend Ian Fleming. Click the Image to View Our Gallery of Patricia Neal Photos These two entertainment titans produced a brood of characters worthy of their dad’s imagination. There are Theo Dahl, 50; Lucy, 45, a screenwriter who penned Wild Child, about a Malibu princess shipped off to the kind of English boarding school her dad endured; Tessa, 53, the writer, and mother of model Sophie Dahl; and Ophelia, 46.

It was Ophelia who, tasked with the job of writing her father’s biography, entrusted it to family friend Donald Sturrock , who describes the clan as made of “lots of artistic talents in their own right.” When Neal and Dahl met at a dinner party thrown by Children’s Hour playwright Lillian Hellman, Neal, a household name for roles in films like The Fountainhead, was in the wake of a three-year affair with Gary Cooper, which ended with Neal aborting their child on his advice. “Frequently my life has been likened to a Greek tragedy and the actress in me cannot deny the comparison,” she wrote in her 1988 autobiography . Both, says Sturrock, were “at the right point in their lives to make a match, although both had reservations about whether they were making the right one.” When they married in 1953, Neal and Dahl were keen to have children, with their first of five born in 1955.

It was family, and later tragedy, that “bound them together.” In a freak accident, their baby son, Theo, was hit in his stroller by a New York taxi, and their eldest daughter, Olivia, died of complications from measles at the age of 7. For all the doubts, “after that, there was a sense that they were an inseparable team,” says Sturrock. When the family moved back to London in 1961, Dahl collaborated with surgeons to invent a kind of valve that it was thought could help Theo. It was the children, too, who were responsible for Dahl concentrating his energies on writing for children. The BFG ’s Big Friendly Giant was, for instance, him: the six foot six dad telling his children a bedtime story. From witches that terrorize children to greedy little boys that vanish into giant vats of chocolate and poachers that get their bottoms peppered with bullets, Roald Dahl’s fictive universe needs no introduction to the millions of children (and children now grown up) who still read his work.

For all the elements of Greek tragedy, which took its darkest turn when she suffered a debilitating stroke in her 30s, her friends recall Neal, too, as enormously good fun. Like Dahl, says Sturrock, Neal was “very blunt, very open, very honest and very ready to talk about things, without any bullshit.” Jeremy Treglown, professor of comparative literature at Warwick University, and former editor of the TLS , got to know her in the '90s, when he worked on an unauthorized biography of Dahl. “She was full of life,” he says, “a great gossip with a tough Southern sense of humor,” who could raise eyebrows with her disinclination to follow the rules. “Part of the fun was that since the brain hemorrhage she couldn't remember names, so would tell me impossibly tantalizing gossip along the lines of 'She had a disgraceful affair with ...

the sweet guy who got an Oscar in what was it called?...” The stroke, says Sturrock, was “the straw that broke the camel's back in the marriage." Told she would never walk or talk again, Dahl refused to accept the doctor’s prognosis and his desperately strident recovery program for her is now akin to modern treatment of strokes. At the time, it was harshly unorthodox, for instance, insisting that she use the right word if she mixed them up. “I think that if there’s a defining family trait, it has something to do with not being frightened to say the thought that’s in your head,” says Donald Sturrock. Neal’s death, at a miraculous 84, considering her near-miss some 50 years before, coincided with the long-awaited publication of the first authorized biography of Dahl, Storyteller by Sturrock, who as a BBC producer in his 20s befriended Dahl when he was sent to make a documentary about him.

Despite the 40-year age gap, the two were close for four years until Dahl’s death, and Sturrock was even permitted to film inside Dahl’s writing hut at the bottom of his garden in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire. In Boy, Dahl described how his eccentric father would make his mother go on walks in sublime landscapes in the final months of pregnancy, convinced that this would create an addiction to beauty in the unborn child. His own children had the benefit of a father Ophelia termed “magical,” and beyond this, for all he and Neal’s difficulties and ill-health, it would be pop psychology to try to guess at the effects of the pits and troughs of their marriage on their children. Ophelia commented once, “Our family life has been rather like a fairy story. Dark beginnings and a final reconciliation.” Despite enormous pain at the time, even Neal and Dahl’s second wife, Felicity "Liccy" Crosland, her friend for whom he left her, were eventually reconciled. Tessa, a writer and contributing editor to Tatler, suffered bouts of depression and alcoholism.

Her daughter Sophie Dahl joked of her hippie-ish childhood, moving 17 times by the time she was 19: “All I wanted was a stable life, but whenever I told Mum that she used to say, ‘All right then, we’ll get you a stable.’” It’s the now the stuff of fashion legend that the late Isabella Blow “discovered” the then-teenage Sophie Dahl on the King’s Road in London crying in a doorway after a row with her mother. With her curves intact, she was signed to Storm and was for a moment a poster girl for models the opposite of the prevailing heroin chic. Minus the curves, she had a successful modeling career in New York and there was a well-documented spell as Mick Jagger’s girlfriend. Now married to the jazz singer Jamie Cullum , she also campaigns for the Soil Association and a had recent cooking series that drew favorable comparisons with national treasure Nigella Lawson. Known for her blunt style in social settings, Dahl has cut a swath through London’s literary and fashion worlds. Twenty years after her death, The BFG was dedicated to Olivia, to whom Dahl had first told his children’s stories.

It was Sophie, too, who inspired the small bespectacled blond heroine. Like her mother, Tessa, she now writes, including a novel, The Man With the Dancing Eyes. The couple’s son Theo, who recovered from that terrible accident, and daughter Lucy, whom Neal was pregnant with when she had her stroke, work as screenwriters. For her part, Ophelia handed over the task of biographer to Sturrock, and is a prominent social justice and health-care advocate. As the director of Partners in Health , she works with Dr. Paul Farmer in his efforts to improve health care and provide medical services to people in Haiti, Rwanda, and all over the world. She was prominently featured in Tracy Kidder’s account, Mountains Beyond Mountains , of their remarkable work. “In Pat and in what I learned about Roald Dahl," says Treglown, "a certainty that life is what you make it and that the only way to deal with problems is to deal with them. “I don’t know if I can communicate but I think that if there’s a defining family trait, it has something to do with not being frightened to say the thought that’s in your head. There’s little impulse to edit,” says Sturrock.

A gift, you could say, to a biographer, his readers, and not least to fans of Patricia Neal and Dahls everywhere. Correction: This story has been revised to correct which daughter Neal was pregnant with when she had a stroke; who her youngest child is; and the years of when she met Dahl, when they married, and when their first child was born. Sophie Dahl pregnant and expecting second child with Jamie Cullum | Daily Mail Online comments She's got one of the most famous families in Britain, and now there's going to be a new addition to the Dahl clan. Model turned author Sophie Dahl, who married jazz musician Jamie Cullum in 2010, has revealed that the couple are expecting their second child. The 35-year-old cookery writer, who gave birth to her first child in March last year, is clearly working on extending her famous blood line. Covering up: Sophie Dahl wears a loose-fitting tunic to the Harper's Bazaar party on Wednesday night as she poses with husband Jamie Cullum Confirmed to MailOnline by her agent, the news comes the day after the loved up pair stepped out for the Harper's Bazaar award at Claridge's in Mayfair.

RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share The granddaughter of writer Roald Dahl wore a loose-fitting patterned tunic to the party, sparking speculation that she might have something to hide. Posing alongside her diminutive husband, Sophie couldn't seem to keep the smile off her face on the red carpet as Jamie put a protective arm around her waist. That smile says it all: Jazz musician Jamie Cullum is seen smiling on Thursday in London, on the day it was announced he's to become a second-time father Paired with black tights and flat shoes, the star looked demure compared to many of the other guests. The blonde presenter, who lives in a small village in Buckinghamshire with her husband and daughter Lyra, took a break from modelling to concentrate on her BBC2 cookery programme and her writing but has recently announced her return to the career that made her name. Although the star is the new face of the Aubin & Wills' new autumn campaign, she may have to give modelling more of a back seat with another little one on the way.

Not a hint: Sophie with Heston Blumenthal in September, showing off no sign of her pregnancy The writer, who has spoken out about size zero models, has maintained her slim figure in recent years and showed off her flat stomach just last month. Posing at the GQ Awards, Sophie didn't display any sign of pregnancy in a skin-tight red dress. The blonde writer, who is eight inches taller than her musician husband, married Jamie in a lavish ceremony in 2010. Sophie Dahl - IMDb IMDb Actress | Writer Sophie Dahl was born on September 15, 1977 in London, England as Sophia Holloway. She is an actress and writer, known for The Delicious Miss Dahl (2010), The King of Bollywood (2004) and People I Know (2002). She has been married to Jamie Cullum since January 9, 2010. They have two children. See full bio » Born:

Question: To whom is Sophie Dahl married?
Answer: JAMIE CULLUM